Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Mille-feuille With Whipped Orange Curd - I Join The Daring Bakers!

I finally joined the Daring Bakers!!! I
really don't know why it took me so long to register with this group of
passionate bakers across the world, but am so glad I did it, really better late than never!
Its exciting and also intimidating to be part of the group, challenging
recipes every month, a dead line to meet, so many new things to bake,
so much to learn!! Thanks to Lisa of La Mia Cucina and Ivonne of Cream Puffs in Venice for making the baking lives of home-bakers even more exciting!

Our October 2012 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Suz of Serenely Full . Suz challenged us to not only tackle buttery and flaky puff
pastry, but then take it step further and create a sinfully delicious
Mille Feuille dessert with it!

The nail-biting wait to know what
my first challenge would be was over, so Mille Feuille it would have to
be! Mille Feuille is French for 'a thousand leaves' denoting the
layers of puff pastry. Mille Feuille is a popular French patisserie
treat, the traditional, classic version being layers of puff pastry
filled with vanilla pastry cream. These are also known as Napoleons,
custard slice or vanilla slice. Its often topped with royal icing and
decorative chocolate squiggles, but Suz gave liberty with the fillings,
sweet or even savory! Boy! Was I glad I had already made puff pastry
earlier, albeit rough puff pastry!

Life has been busier than ever,
the obviously no-longer-little little brother got engaged! Meaning some
shopping, a short stay at my mother's place. Made the puff pastry, froze
a good part of it, baked the rest. Kids on vacation chaos and my chores
kept me busy and I hesitatingly refrigerated the baked pasty - to be
photographed when I returned home from Mom's. The pastry took the
refrigeration well to my delight and surprise, all it needed was 5-7
minutes in a moderate oven to crisp it again!

I had made the
puff pastry long back as I wanted to post it on time, excited like a kid
waiting to show off his latest drawing! But I think the forces above
wanted my first challenge to be memorable in some way at least. I did
something to change the settings in my camera, could have cried seeing the
pictures, Picasa refused to stop throwing errors at me, lost the
internet for some time...Distress calls to Lubna and thanks to her, got the camera
working better! Baked some more pastry, made some more orange curd, took
pictures again!Sigh!

Finally, my post comes in late, the post date
being on 27th of the month, but thankfully the Daring
bakers have a grace period for posting! So here come my Mille Fuilles, flaky
puff pastry layered with creamy whipped orange curd. Delicious!!

Funnily,
though I have come across lemon curd recipes a good number of times, I have
never attempted to make it, putt off by the name I guess! But it was
creamy and nice, zesty of course, a versatile filling you could use for
cookies, trifles, tarts and cakes among others! I have wicked plans to
try all of these!

I have used Alice Medrich's Mock Puff pastry,
recipe here .
The orange curd is adapted from Dorie Greenspan's recipe. I have
used orange juice and some zest in place of the lemon juice and reduced
the quantity of sugar.

Procedure:
Suspend a heat proof strainer over a medium sized bowl ( about 3 cup capacity).
Put all the ingredients in a medium heavy-bottomed saucepan (with high
sides to prevent splashing) and stir
with a heatproof spatula to moisten the sugar. (The mixture looked quite
watery at this point, but it does thicken, so patience, don't hurry it) Put the pan over
medium-low heat and cook, stirring constantly, until the butter melts
and the mixture thickens like custard, 4 to 6 minutes.( I started with a
spatula and switched to a whisk later) Keep your eyes
on the pan because the curd can curdle quickly. It is cooked enough
when you can run your finger along the spatula the curd doesn’t run into
the track you’ve created. At this point the temperature on my instant
read thermometer registered 175 F. Don’t worry if the curd looks thin
at this
point – it will thicken more as it cools. Remove the pan from the heat
( I strained it)and scrape the curd into a heatproof jar or bowl. Press
a piece of
plastic wrap against the curd to create an airtight seal and cool to
room temperature. The curd thickens with refrigeration, mine was much
thicker after refrigerating over night.

To make the Mille Fuilles with whipped orange curd. The amounts of each component depends on the quantity you need to make. I would say half recipe puff pastry, 1/2 cup of orange curd and 1 cup of whipped cream to make about 4-5 of these. Make more of each to be safer. Leftovers of any component are still deliciousundoubtedly!

For the puff pastry : I
normally cut the 10'' square of mock puff pastry (the entire recipe) into quarters and then
use. I have taken the pastry out of the refrigerator and kept it at
room temperature for about 10 minutes to slightly soften it. (If you have frozen it, thaw overnight in the fridge then proceed.) I think
putting more pressure to roll the cold pastry will compress the layers. Do
not leave at room temperature for longer or the butter will ooze as you roll. Line your
baking tray with parchment neatly, you will place the cut rectangles on
this. I have rolled the quarter about 3mm thick and 9'' square. Then
cut into 2-2.5'' wide , about --rectangles . Dock all over the pastry
with a fork or the pastry will puff up more. Refrigerate, covered (on the tray)
again for about 1/2 an hour to firm up the butter again, the cold butter
creates the layers. In the meantime pre-heat oven to 180 degrees C /
350 degree F. Bake for 25-30 minutes or till crisp and golden. Cool to
room temperature.

For the Whipped orange curd: I have folded in
1/4 cup orange curd and color into a cup of whipped cream. If you use
more orange curd, the mixture may be runny and you may not be able to
pipe. Fill the cream into a disposable piping bag fitted with a tip. Snip the tip to expose the nozzle. Place
one rectangle each of the baked pastry on your serving platter. Pipe
the cream. Place another rectangle of pastry, pipe the cream, top with
another rectangle of pastry.

Garnish as desired and serve. We ate this immediately
and loved it! Crispy, flaky pastry and smooth zesty cream, what's not to like?